Donald Trump’s candidacy a national embarrassment

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Donald Trump is many things: a billionaire, a bully, self-obsessed and an entertainer.

In his campaign to be the Republican nominee for president, the media has helped Trump propel the 2016 presidential race into a sensationalized embarrassment.

Trump lives off national attention as a narcissist. He is the dream interview for networks as a public personality who has no filter and gleefully demeans others.

While turning the presidential race into entertainment is great for ratings, it’s also flawed. There’s an important message voters are trying to trumpet, but Trump has taken away from that by being a thin-skinned bully.

That message can be found in polls, with 58 percent of Republicans and 43 percent of Independents saying that they want their next president to come from outside the current political establishment, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.

There is nothing more evident than when you look at NBC’s poll after the second debate, which showed the top three favorites candidates among voters, Trump, Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson, all come from outside the political system.

The message from Republican voters is simple: they have grown tired of the current establishment. Trump’s attention-seeking hurts the impact of that message.

Trump is notorious for making comments that criticize another person’s physical appearance or character, whether it’s a reporter, another candidate or anyone who actually calls him out for spewing ideas with no plans.

In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine on Sept. 9, Trump used Fiorina’s physical appearance as a reason why she couldn’t be president.

“Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?” Trump said.

You would think that Trump could not get more misogynistic than that, but you would be wrong.

Even after Fiorina brilliantly responded to his comments during the second Republican debate on Sept. 16, saying, “I think women all over this country heard what Mr. Trump said,” Trump cut in by saying he thinks she has a “beautiful face and is a beautiful woman.”

Trump has a history of criticizing women on their physical appearance. He called Rosie O’Donnell a pig during a speech for The Learning Annex and he tweeted in 2012 that Arianna Huffington, editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post, is “unattractive both inside and out.”

This is who Trump is and he did exactly what CNN was hoping he’d do when the network extended the debate to a three-hour marathon, instead of the typical two-hour debate.

Knowing that Trump’s presence would gain them more viewers, CNN benefited by charging advertisers 40 times its usual rate, according to Advertising Age, a news company that tracks data on marketing and media.

Whether he’s demeaning a woman who criticizes him or saying that Sen. John McCain, a former prisoner of war, is no hero because he was captured, Trump produces viewers and those viewers equal money for these networks.

Ask Trump about another candidate and he will do what he does best: unleash some form of a personal attack.

Trump speaks the loudest message of what many Republicans want, change. But the person spreading that message is an obnoxious, self-obsessed entertainer whose efforts are boosted by media outlets looking for every last dollar possible.

As a result, the presidential race is leading further towards becoming a national embarrassment

There’s a lesson to learn here. You can criticize someone without attacking their appearance, and, believe me, for you Mr. Trump, there’s plenty to criticize.